the latter Moreelse's portrait of himself.

Sir Joshua Reynolds's Visit to the Gallery.—Sir Joshua Reynolds left an account of his visit to the Prince of Orange's Gallery in 1781; and among the pictures that he especially admired are those that critics unite in extolling to-day. He calls attention to the Wouwermans, two Van de Veldes, the portraits of Rubens's two wives, Rembrandt's Portrait of a Young Man, a Conversation by Ter Borch (The Despatch it is now called), Van Dijck's Portrait of Simons the Painter, Teniers's Kitchen, two Ostades, a landscape by Rubens, Paul Potter's Vache qui se mire, the Inside of a Delft Church, by Hoogest (Houckgeest), Fruit, by De Heem, "done with the utmost perfection"; a Woman with a Candle, by Gerard Dow; a Woman writing, looking up and speaking to Another Woman, by Metsu; a picture of Dutch Gallantry by Mieris,—"a man pinching the ear of a dog which lies on his mistress's lap"; a Boy blowing Bubbles, also by Mieris, and The Flight into Egypt, by Van der Werff,—"one of his best."

The Vijver Lake.—But while we have been talking of the past history of the Mauritshuis and its treasures, we have failed to notice the Vijver, a pretty lake bordered with trees and dotted with islands, the haunt of swans and other waterfowl—descendants, perhaps, of Hondecoeter's and Weenix's models—that float upon its glassy surface, and cut through those quiet reflections of the long line of picturesque buildings, including the Mauritshuis. The long quay on the other side is the favorite and fashionable promenade of The Hague. We must note the Vijver, because it has been an attractive subject for Dutch painters of all periods; and the traveller will frequently see representations of it. One of the most recent is Klinkenberg's View of the Vijver at The Hague, which was presented to Boijman's Museum in 1876, by the Rotterdam Society for Promoting Art. The Mauritshuis is represented on the right. And now, having looked at this building from across the Vijver, we will pass to the entrance.

Paucity of Foreign Pictures in Dutch Galleries.—The Dutch galleries differ from many other great European galleries, such as the National Gallery, the Louvre, the Hermitage, and the big German galleries, by being devoted almost exclusively to works of the Dutch and Flemish masters. Pictures of foreign schools are insignificant in number and of very slight importance. The foreign pictures in the Mauritshuis can be dismissed in a few words.

Italian Pictures in the Mauritshuis.—The Italian pictures include:

Of unknown Italian artists of the sixteenth century, the subjects are:

Other Foreign Pictures in the Mauritshuis.—France is represented only by a portrait by J. A. Aved, A Group of Merchants by S. Bourdon, and two ideal landscapes by C. Vernet. The Spanish school is represented by a portrait by Velasquez, a Virgin and Child by Murillo, a Magdalen by M. Cereso, and a landscape and a portrait by unknown artists. The German artists are scarcely more numerous. There are two portraits by Holbein and three others of his school, three portraits by B. Beham, an Italian landscape by J. H. Roos, three portraits by J. F. A. Tischbein, and four Biblical and one mythological pictures by H. Rottenhamer. The subjects of these are: The Meeting of David and Abigail, St. Philip Baptizing the Eunuch, The Rest in Egypt, Christ Delivering Souls from Purgatory, and The Fall of Phaeton. The meagre list of foreign works also includes two portraits by the Danish artist, J. G. Ziesenis.

Strength and Weakness of the Gallery.—The strength of The Hague Gallery lies mainly in its portraits, either single or in groups. Of these there are considerably more than a hundred; of genre pictures there are about seventy, and of landscape more than sixty. There are nearly fifty Biblical and religious subjects, and more than thirty taken from pagan mythology. The Gallery is weak in historical pictures, of which there are only seventeen. Only seven canvases represent the great marine painters; and the pictures of birds, flowers and fruits, and still life are comparatively few.

The student naturally turns first to the great pictures that have a world-wide reputation. The two most famous are undoubtedly Paul Potter's Bull and Rembrandt's Lesson in Anatomy.

Paul Potter's Bull.—The picture represents an enormous black and white bull standing on a hillock beneath two trees. Beneath the trees lie a cow, a sheep, and a lamb, and behind the trunks stand a ram and a shepherd. An immense meadow, on which cattle are grazing, stretches away to the dim horizon, where the buildings of a town are barely visible. In the broad expanse of sky a bird soars with outspread wings. The bull is proud and defiant, with silky hide and loose dewlap, and stands with firmly planted feet. His eye is savage. This picture has been the subject of much criticism: the figures of the man, the sheep, and the lamb have been condemned by most critics, while the ram's horns have been called "a splendid piece of sculpture," and the head of the cow "the gem of the whole work." The face of the cow is marvellous. The eyes, and the wet and dripping nose and mouth, rivet the spectator's gaze. He fancies he smells the grass-laden breath of the animal, and sees her jaw begin to move as she chews the cud. "No painter ever concentrated so much life and truthful expression in the face of a ruminant," remarks a critic. Strange, then, that the fawn-colored body and crumpled leg are hard and wooden.

The Bull was painted in 1647, when Paul Potter was but twenty-two years of age, and was living in Amsterdam and Haarlem. The picture was purchased in 1749 for 630 florins, and in 1795 was carried by the French to Paris and placed in the Louvre, where it was ranked as the fourth most valuable painting,—the others being Raphael's Transfiguration, Domenichino's Communion of St. Jerome, and Titian's Martyrdom of St. Peter. The Dutch government offered 60,000 florins to Napoleon for its restoration.

The Mirrored Cow.—A more beautiful picture, and